


Bones and Salt

by OtherCat



Category: Chrno Crusade
Genre: Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Can't Escape The Homestuck, Canon-Typical Violence, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Mental Health Issues, Mentions of Eugenics, Other, Other People's Fan Trolls, Period Typical Attitudes, Period-Typical Ableism, Period-Typical Racism, fan trolls
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-13
Updated: 2017-04-17
Packaged: 2018-07-14 20:57:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7189907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OtherCat/pseuds/OtherCat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You had a goal once.</p>
<p>It's been six months since the destruction of Pandaemonium and the end of human (and demon) civilization, but while Pandaemonium is gone, the world of perfect freedom is still out of reach.</p>
<p>What will you do now?</p>
<p>AO3 echo of <a href="http://sinner001.tumblr.com/">Bones and Salt</a> on Tumblr.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Days One Through Twelve

**Author's Note:**

> There are further/more updates on the tumblr version of this fic.

**Log: Day One (Thursday, June 25, 1925)**

The current situation is not optimal. (This is a vast understatement.) Shader has worked herself half to death keeping me alive and Eden in the air. I am not entirely sure how she did it, and her explanations were not very coherent. The last thing I clearly remember is confronting Chrono on the ship. He was determined to stop me, and I was determined to carry out the plan, no matter how badly the campaign had gone. (Damn that girl. Joshua’s sister is a menace. Damn my underestimating her.) He attempted to do…something, I’m not sure what to Pandaemonium. Trying to take Her higher, and out of the atmosphere.

Everything went white, and then black.

When I resurfaced, I was in the infirmary, floating in a tank of gel. Everything felt…very clear. Sharp and defined and entirely too intense. I smelled the chemical reek of the gel, dust. I could hear the wheeze of air circulation through the vents and the distant hum of the engine and the sounds of electronics. Everything seemed too loud, too bright, too intense. Pandaemonium was dead. The realization brought a feeling so intense that I couldn’t identify it at first. It might have been relief, it might have been joy. It might have been some combination of the two.

I was alive. Shader (and I knew it had to be Shader) had somehow rescued me from the explosion. I was extremely awake. The first order of business was to detach myself from the various medical equipment and emerge from the tank. Then I took a very long, very hot shower and dressed.

I did a little exploring. The apostle children, including Joshua were in stasis tubes. Many of them were injured, and covered with peculiar, mossy patches or knobby growths. Infected by Legion, I realized, but still alive. Joshua’s sister was also in a tube, her skin reddish and scalded looking. Badly injured. (Why had Shader done this?)

More exploring. Eden had suffered a great deal of damage. Much greater than the damage it had suffered during our initial escape from Pandaemonium decades ago, and yet she was still in the air. There were no bodies, and I felt a disturbing feeling at the thought that Shader had removed them on her own. I’m not sure what the feeling was. Unease? And an image of her pale, terrified and curled up in a corner, trying so hard not to cry. The image hurt and spurred me into seeking her out.

I found her on the bridge asleep, lying across a long distance scanning array, a tool clutched in her hand. Several monitors were live, showing the exterior sections of Eden, grey/white cloudscapes and the ground, far, far below. Shader startled violently when I woke her, then attempted to burrow into me, hugging me tightly. I let her cling a moment, before asking her to report. I discovered I had been in the tank for nearly six months, and that my goals had been fulfilled, but not to the extent I had hoped for.

Chrono had somehow kept the Legion from metastasizing at the rate my simulations had indicated it would. But it had still spread, and the human governments had collapsed due to the spreading Legion and destruction of infrastructure. This was…disappointing. The plan required a complete extinction event, destroying the last of the demons and all of the humans. New life, influenced by Legion would evolve, free of the System. A new world for Chrono and Fiore to explore, if Fiore hadn’t disappeared and Chrono had accepted his part in the plan.

(Damn that girl.)

I asked Shader what had happened to Chrono, and she said she didn’t know. She said that she had grabbed me, gotten me on a flyer and taken us back to Eden. I asked her why she hadn’t grabbed Chrono instead. She said that Chrono had disappeared, that she heard a voice telling her to grab me, telling her where the flyer was. That alarmed me a little. Whose voice was it? Shader said she didn’t know, but there was a hesitation in her voice that told me that she wasn’t being entirely truthful. That she had recognized the voice, but didn’t want to…disturb me by telling me who she had heard. I didn’t press her, and she told me about getting to Eden, getting the shields back up and working on me while also cleaning up the mess and getting “the kids” in stasis.

I asked her why, (I didn’t like the idea of her pushing herself so hard, struggling to keep Eden in the air on her own, and also trying to keep me and the children alive) and she gave me a surprisingly fierce look. “I am not pulling the plug on them,” she said angrily.

“You misunderstand,” I told her. “I was including myself as a drain on resources.” Shader gave me a look I couldn’t read. “Boss, there was no way I’d pull the plug on you either.”

“Well I’m glad you didn’t,” I said, trying for a cheerful air. I wasn’t quite successful, the words twisted strangely in my mouth, and Shader gave me a worried look. “I’m on my feet again and can help you now, and I suppose I’m not unhappy with your priorities. The children might prove to be useful, especially Joshua,” I told her. “But for now, we’ll keep them in stasis.” She nodded, and I asked her questions about what had gone on while I had been in the infirmary.

Then I left her to her work, and went to get something to eat. Our stores were very low, but there was flour and baking powder so I made biscuits, and heated up a can of soup.

**Log: Day Five (Tuesday, June 30, 1925)**

The past few days have mostly involved helping Shader with repairs, doing an inventory of supplies, and reviewing security feeds of the battle. I confess I re-watched my exchange with Duffau several times for other than analytical reasons. Several of the feeds lost video due to having been damaged, but I was able to recover enough information to create a timeline of events: 

  * The initial explosion destroys the Order airship and most of the geased Pursuers. 
  * Eden is driven back by the blast and drops altitude due to malfunctioning stabilizers, but is not destroyed because Joshua and the apostles throw up a shield. 
  * The apostles are not able to maintain the shield, but Joshua is able to lead the children to relative safety inside Eden, though not before several of them including Joshua sustain injuries.
  * Legion, rapidly dispersing through the atmosphere as a fine, extremely hot particulate eats everything in its path, which disposes of the last of the Pursuers and the members of the Order.
  * Joshua’s sister, who had apparently been timestopped by Chrono, is scalded by Legion, but not eaten or incorporated. (I am not really sure what happened there.)
  * 24 hours pass in which Legion particulate penetrates Eden and Joshua and the children are infected. Azmaria and Joshua both attempt using their healing powers to repair damage, but this just slows it down. Azmaria and Joshua lose consciousness, followed by the other children. 
  * Shader lands near the main building and rushes me inside. Once I’m in the tank, she takes a rest, checks the security feeds and realizes that Joshua and the apostles are still alive. She works on getting the children into stasis tubes. Then she finds Joshua’s sister who also goes into a tube. 
  * The spread of Legion through the atmosphere takes a week. The particulate matter blocks sunlight and causes a severe drop in temperature. Particulate disperses to the ground and begins to eat and incorporate matter, multiplying quickly, but not as fast as initial simulations suggested it would. 



I find that I am extremely proud of Joshua. He did very well in his efforts to keep himself and the apostle children alive, and exhibited planning and command skills in what was a very dangerous environment. I am less happy about the situation with his sister, though I suppose his loyalty to his sister and his determination to protect her is a sign that the horns had not done permanent damage to his brain. When he’s awake, I’ll want Shader to run tests. 

No strategy survives contact with the enemy or apparently, my brother. I am somewhat disappointed with the end results of my mission, and at a loss of what to do now. I had never anticipated surviving. Survival had never been part of the plan. It couldn’t be. We had nowhere to go, even as we escaped Eden, I knew we were doomed. The others were so hopeful, so desperate to live even as they were all dying. They wanted to believe, and all I knew that it was impossible, that the only thing we could do was destroy Pandaemonium, destroy the system. All of my “faith” was that the destruction of Pandaemonium would result in a world of freedom. Chrono put his faith in…I don’t know. Not in me. And I kept thinking I could make him see reason, when the tomb door he locked himself behind after I killed Mary should have told me that it wasn’t possible. That I had lost him. But I was sure that he’d come around eventually. He was part of the plan, even if he didn’t know it. 

It’s been very strange since waking up. The presence of Pandaemonium is gone, and everything feels clearer somehow. I feel as if a fog of some kind has lifted, that my mind isn’t turning in the same circles that it used to. At the same time I feel very tired, and not just because Shader is a cruel task mistress who set me a very long list of repairs that I haven’t even gotten through a quarter of yet. I haven’t been able to sleep very much and when I do I have dreams. Of my last fight with Chrono. Of the first escape from Pandaemonium. Of fighting Pursuers. 

To do:

  * We need to become more self-sufficient since there is no longer an infrastructure to take advantage of. To this end I need to clear out several rooms near the garden (which is currently in a very sad state) and set up planters and uv lights for a vegetable garden/green house. 
  * In addition to the gardening project we need meat. The best plan would be to find chickens and/or rabbits and set up a coop and hutches in the garden. This would also be beneficial to the gardening project. The initial plan will probably involve hunting. 
  * A series of missions to acquire resources and raw materials. 
  * Repairing the long distance sensor arrays, which are still down. 
  * Uprooting the dead trees and bushes in the garden. (Possibly replacing them?) 
  * Try to find out what happened to Fiore. 
  * Review the medical information on Joshua and the other apostles. With plans to awaken them. (They might prove to be useful in the long term. At the moment we can’t really support them, so they’ll stay in stasis for now.) 



**Log: Day Twelve (Tuesday, July 7, 1925)**

Eden has arrived in Utah. The weather is very cold for the time of year, and snow is on the ground. Temperature was in the twenties, and the sky was cloudy. 

Just came back from my first supply run. Took the flyer, and after some searching, decided on an abandoned farm for a base of operations. The farm turned out to be very well stocked with canned goods. Those immediately went into the hold. There was also a good selection of seeds (vegetables and herbs) seed potatoes, and gardening tools. 

The livestock had been a few pigs, chickens, two dogs and a mule. They had been shot, and partially scavenged. (By rats and insects mostly, possibly also by the feral cats I caught glimpses of when I came up to the barns.) I was extremely disappointed. The animals were significantly altered by Legion infection, though none of the deformities appeared debilitating.

Inside the farm house I found the bodies of an old woman, two adults in their forties and ten children ages ranging from five to approximately seventeen years of age. All show signs of Legion infection and violent death. Judging from the evidence, I would say that the adult male murdered the children, his wife, and his older female relative in their beds, and then committed suicide at least a week prior to my arrival. Three of the children and the adult female had been bound to their beds. They also looked to have been the most severely affected by Legion. The woman would have been completely blind due to thick plates growing over her eye sockets. The children seemed to be sprouting fur or scales, and one little girl might have been growing eyespots, though it was difficult to tell given the condition of the body.

The suicide note was full of self-pity and religious allusions and not very coherent. Blah blah sin. Blah blah begging for forgiveness, and request for a decent burial. 

I took soil samples for Shader. 

There were some newspapers from just after the initial explosion, and just before the complete collapse. I grabbed those, my eyes caught by the headlines, which mentioned epidemics and monsters. From the articles I think the “monsters” are demons or humans strongly under the influence or maddened by incorporated Legion. Or some combination of the two. 

This does not bode well for Joshua, the children or Joshua’s sister. To that end, we have plans to head east, looking for Magdalen Order abbeys. The Order did extensive research into demon technology, and attempted to reverse-engineer what they came across. They also had an experimental program involving infusing humans with Legion to make them stronger and better able to fight demons. Though I had thought previously that the “Legionnaire Project” was just a rumor, we found out otherwise during the battles that led up to the final conflict with the Order and Pandaemonium. One of the Order’s operatives had been significantly infused with Legion, and even radiated with stored Astral energy. We might be able to solve the problem of Joshua possibly being overwhelmed by Legion if we can find documents related to the Legionnaire Project. 

Of course the danger of seeking out Magdalen Order abbeys is actually encountering Magdalen Order agents. I suppose it might be more sensible to euthanize than attempt to save but…Shader is very determined that the children not die. I find that I don’t want to force her into doing something she is disinclined to do. It seems like the right thing to do at this point. 

Speaking of things she doesn’t want to do. Shader suggested that we revive Joshua’s sister the way we did Fiore. I was a little surprised by the suggestion. Shader had objected strongly to working with Fiore, saying that she had been too far gone. Oddly enough, Shader does not believe that this is the case with Joshua’s sister. “She wants to live Aion,” Shader said. 

“She doesn’t have any more life to live,” I told her. I didn’t ask her how she knew that. “It would take a great deal of time and effort to revive her in a puppet.” 

“I think it would be worth it,” Shader said. “Just, I think she might be useful.” 

“Yes, if I need to be shot again, or need a sword broken, she would be perfect for that,” I said.

“She could also help us find Chrono,” Shader said, very quiet.

“Chrono is dead.” It felt so strange saying that, for some reason. Chrono died. I had won. And even as I thought that, it felt wrong, and I don’t know why. 

“I don’t think he is, and even if he is, Joshua…Joshua wouldn’t be happy if we didn’t at least try to save her,” Shader said.

The softness of her argument made me angry, but the words of censure stuck in my throat. I wanted to say I didn’t care if Joshua was upset that his sister had died. That his sister was dead any way and it didn’t matter. But…I couldn’t say either of those things. I am not really sure why. “Why don’t you think Chrono is dead?” I asked instead.

“Do you think he’s dead, Boss? Really?” She asked. 

And I couldn’t answer her. I felt a strong echo of the conviction that Chrono was absolutely essential to the plan. That Chrono’s true strength and purpose would be realized after the world was reborn. I realized I still felt that way, and the realization shook me. I stood there blankly for several minutes, which alarmed Shader. “I’m fine, Shader,” I told her when I could find words again. “I…no. I don’t think Chrono is dead. He should be dead. I don’t think even he could have survived the explosion.” A beat. “But we survived the explosion, didn’t we? Maybe he did too.” I took a deep breath. “We have to find him.” A beat. “We can get started on reviving her. We should wake Joshua at the same time, so he’s reassured nothing has been…altered.” 

We spoke some more on the subject, and roughed out a timeline for establishing an infrastructure, then reviving Joshua’s sister and then awakening Joshua. 

The more immediate concern is setting up the garden rooms and setting up the plantings. I’ll be working on that for the next few weeks, and then planning another supply run. Creating an infrastructure is the priority over any other project. 


	2. Days Fifteen Through Forty

**Log: Day 15 (Friday, July 10, 1926) ******

Explored farms nearest to the farm I’m using as our base of operations. Both were abandoned. (And abandoned fairly recently.) One household left a note welcoming squatters, but advising them to head into town instead of staying in the house. (The note indicated that there were “creatures.”) Neither household shot their livestock. Saw no signs of “creatures.” The animals of course showed extensive signs of Legion incorporation. 

There were a few cows and chickens at one farm, pigs at the other farm. The cows had broken into the shed where the food had been stored, and the chickens (which had been set loose from the coop) had followed after. There were also some signs that other (wild) animals were taking advantage of the shed. At the pig farm I never actually saw the pigs, just their hoof prints, and where they’d broken out of their enclosure. There were signs of feral cats, but I didn’t see them either. 

Shader and I butchered three of the cows and put them in the freezer. We also caught the chickens and transferred the coop to Eden, though Shader wants to make a new coop that will be easier to clean. We also emptied the pantries of both houses after a conversation with Shader on whether it was likely that the residents of the houses would be back. (She felt that the residents of the house would return and need the supplies. I argued that they would have secured or hidden the food if they had needed the food, and the one note had welcomed squatters to take anything they needed.) 

It was evening by the time we finished transferring the food (and other necessary items) to Eden. Though I had doubted the references to “creatures” it became very clear that something was indeed out there. The “something” made the remaining cows edgy (more edgy than they already were after we had killed three of their number), but the “something” didn’t seem inclined to approach. There were lights in the distance, all in a row. And something howled, and was answered, out in the dark. My hair was making an attempt at standing on end at the sound. Poor Shader was puffed up like a frightened cat. We retreated quickly to Eden and made a mutual decision to not talk about it. 

(At least until the next day, when I talked her out of sending out drones in the direction we saw the lights.)

At this point, we have a full larder, and the garden boxes are prepared and filled with dirt. We have enough feed for the chickens. We have a compost room filled with muck from the matter reclaimer and straw from the farms. We’ve set up irrigation in the garden rooms. We are starting to run tests on the soil and the seeds. (The seeds have been incorporated by Legion. What comes up should be interesting.) 

The situation with the weather is grim. Cloud cover from the explosion is blocking sunlight, which has extended winter into the summer months. The coming winter will be even worse. Cloud cover is likely to persist for the next two years. I really hope I haven’t set off an ice age (though one is most likely due). An ice age would be less than optimal conditions for Legion to survive and evolve, though I suppose it would do fine in the deeps where there’s volcanic activity. An ice age would also be less than optimal conditions for my or Shader’s survival and I am feeling as if survival is a thing I should consider. 

Next to do is to head into the nearby town for more supplies, and to get a general feel for what’s going on in the region. I also want to see how cohesive the community is. I’m curious to see how well the humans are surviving these conditions and “the plague.” (This is one of the phrases the humans had been using to describe the effects of the Legion, according to the newspapers I’d seen.) I think I’m going to approach by foot, since I don’t want to risk someone trying to steal the car. 

Shader meanwhile is setting up the medical equipment and getting ready to transfer Joshua’s sister to the chair in preparation for making a doll. I wanted to wait at least until the gardens had been established, but Shader argued that it would be months before Joshua’s sister woke up anyway. I hope Joshua appreciates the effort we’re going through for him. 

Though I’m not exactly comfortable mentioning, my sleep has been restless…The topic my subconscious seems to be focused on is Chrono. I dream of Mary’s tomb, and trying to open the doors. (They were locked, and too heavily warded for me to destroy.) The doors stay shut, but I can hear Chrono’s voice on the other side. Just his voice, and the lift and fall of words, but I can’t understand what he’s staying. (And I don’t know if he’s talking to me, or someone else.) Sometimes I’m walking down the hallways of a building that’s supposed to be a Magdalen Order abbey, but the walls are fit together by hand sized hexagonal tiles. I find Chrono and he’s wearing a Magdalen Militia uniform, and he shoots me with the same gun Joshua’s sister used, when she broke my sword. Sometimes I dream I’m Chrono, and those dreams are the worst because it hurts, and it’s nearly impossible to wake from them. Even when I am awake, I’m paralyzed and can’t breathe from the pain. 

If I were superstitious, perhaps these would be warnings to not seek out Chrono. I am not superstitious though, so all it does is make me want to find Chrono more. I don’t know what will happen when I find him. We might fight again, but I find that I don’t want to. (I won, after all, even if the wine of victory is…somewhat sour.) I don’t think I will try convincing him of his purpose when I see him again. I underestimated his esteem for Joshua’s sister, and apparently, his esteem for humanity. (Why?) I realize now that I went about explaining his part in a way that was…not very clear to Chrono. I horrified him, and that’s when I…just gave up trying to explain. 

Maybe he’ll come into it on his own. 

**Log: Day 25 (Monday, July 20, 1925)**

The trip into town supplied us with information, but very little in the way of supplies. Townspeople are not very welcoming of strangers and very suspicious of outsiders. (Specifically, they are not welcoming of dark skinned strangers.) There were possibly fewer than a hundred people living in the town. Many of them had severe distortions of feature and general shape. A smaller number had few deformities, or were marked only by slight alterations in general human physiology. The humans in general seemed sane, if extremely hostile. 

(It seems that some humans are able to remain sane and coherent despite Legion incorporation. I am somewhat more optimistic about Joshua, though I still want to research work-arounds should he or any of the children turn out to be in the percentage that loses their faculties after exposure to Legion. Joshua was extremely sensitive to psychic feedback while wearing the horns. If this is still the case, the Legion incorporation might cause problems.)

The townspeople were very low on food supplies, and disinclined to share or trade. They are also not very organized, though they’ve made attempts to scavenge nearby farms. The townsfolk are only going after canned goods, and have a fear of eating food or livestock that they feel are “contaminated.” Their scavenging attempts have not been very successful, due to “creatures” that attack them outside of town after dark. 

There were no clear descriptions of the creatures in question, but accounts seemed to agree that they could change their shape, and lured their prey by appearing to be someone the victim knows. They also appear to be specifically targeting humans, because they certainly aren’t eating the surviving livestock, or getting into the food supplies. The victims are usually found dead, with what from the description, sounds like electrical burns.

They will also go after demons foolish enough to believe they are too formidable for any predator to consider attacking, which I found out two days later while exploring a farm, after dark. The creature lured me out of the house by pretending to be Shader. It created an auditory illusion, where I was convinced I was talking to Shader over our communication devices. I am not sure whether it was smart enough to fake an entire conversation, or whether the conversation was entirely what I expected to hear in a conversation with Shader. It attempted to engulf me, and managed to burn me quite severely before I managed to fight it off. (Much like a demon, an excess of astral energy can damage or even kill the creatures.) 

Shader was in a panic when she got me back on board Eden. She had heard me “talking to myself” but hadn’t been able to reach me or snap me out of the creature’s spell. I was extremely unnerved when she told me that, but managed to calm her down and reassure her I was alright. (She was not convinced, not that I blame her. I had some very bad burns.) 

What we know about the creatures:

  * They are nocturnal (or at least I haven’t encountered them in daylight)
  * They feed on emotions and astral energy (after the attack I was exhausted physically and emotionally on top of feeling like a charcoal briquette)
  * They greatly resemble ball lightning when feeding (I had a strange impression that the creature was “coiling” around me when it attacked)
  * The “shapes” they take are audio/visual illusions that they cast into their victim’s mind (very effective illusions)
  * They inflict severe electrical burns on their victims (the burns healed a little slower than normal due to the astral drain) 
  * An excess of astral energy will kill them



Shader wanted to study them further, but I felt that studying the creatures was not a good use of time and resources. Also, it would be too dangerous. At this time it’s enough to know how to destroy the creatures and to be careful after dark, in case we come across these creatures again. (There is something about them that feels “ghostly” though I’m not at all sensitive in that direction, like Chrono is. Yet if they are “ghosts,” I do not think they are human ghosts.)

Eden is currently traveling through Colorado. I’ve done a little scouting using the eagle, but haven’t seen anything of interest. Towns and cities are sparsely occupied, and some towns are completely dead. The infrastructure appears to have completely collapsed, and I haven’t seen anything that shows much in the way of organization. Shader checks the radio, but it’s mostly static. (There are occasional broadcasts but none of them are “official” government broadcasts. Just humans trying to find out if any other humans are still alive.) She wants to talk to them. That is, create a broadcast of her own. A broadcast to explain how Legion works, what it was, and how to use it. I didn’t like the idea very much. It would take too much time away from the various projects we had going. It would be supplying information to the enemy. It would be giving additional information to enemies who had already learned about Legion and what it was. It would make it easier for enemies to find us. Shader argued with me on every point with extreme persistence, and I eventually gave in. I told her that she must make the broadcasts untraceable, and she could make broadcasts only for as long as she kept up with her other projects.

At the moment her chief project is working on Joshua’s sister. (I think I must start referring to her by name. Rosette.) Shader is recording every minute of Rosette’s modification into a doll, and explaining what she is doing. I think she wants Joshua (and Rosette) to see that no additional changes had been made. I am not sure that I see the point, neither Joshua nor Rosette would be able to tell if something had been altered or not, or if Shader was telling the truth about what she was doing. I pointed this out to her, and she gave me a very sad look. “Even if they don’t believe me, I’ll feel better for having given them a detailed explanation for what’s happening. And isn’t making sure they don’t think I tampered with Rosette the main reason we’re waking them up together?”

My chief project is getting the gardens started. This involves as much research as it does actual labor. I knew many of the basics (the flower garden on Eden was very much Mary’s work and she would recruit anyone to work on it with her) but this was a garden for food, not for relaxation. I raided a few libraries, and read up before starting the first plantings. I wanted to make sure everything was in the right kind of soil, everything was the right temperature, and getting the right amount of light. 

It will be interesting to see what comes up.

**Log: Day 40 (Tuesday, August 4, 1925)**

We have left Colorado and are continuing east through Kansas. Travel is a bit slow, due to storms and the necessity for continuing repairs. (Shader keeps me very busy when I am not working on the gardening project, doing all the heavy lifting and the manual repairs I’m capable of.) Another contributing factor to our speed is that Eden was designed to be a stable base of operations, not a transport. The plan is to head north, to Minnesota. There’s a Magdelan Order Abbey near St. Paul, a fairly large one. (It is the abbey where Mary had been kept.) I am hoping that it has been abandoned and not scavenged, because it might have information on the Legionaire Project that gave the one Militia operative his Legion. There may also be confiscated grimoires, demon technology and other useful items. I am also hoping that the wards are down, but just in case they aren’t, I’ve been studying what we know of Magdelan wards, and how to break them. If it turns out that the St. Paul abbey is occupied, we’ll try the abbeys in Chicago and Franklin. 

In Colorado, I had a few more encounters with the astral-eating creatures, mostly observation from a distance, no direct contacts. (I had been using the eagle to scout.) The creatures tend to focus on areas of human habitation, and prefer sentient prey. (In this, they are very like demons.) I am not entirely sure how they “work” in a biological sense, or if a term such as “biology” can even be applied to them. At a lost for anything else to call them, “phantoms” will do as well as anything.

Some of the larger towns still have populations, with those populations divided into still smaller groups, many of which are in extreme competition for resources. I am not very happy about this. There should be a greater urge toward cohesion and cooperation, not conflict. Legion is inherently cooperative, it’s a mutualistic symbiote at its base. On the other hand, various base forms will predate on each other/compete. (I’ve remember observing this when I was still in Pandaemonium. Various types of “lesser demon” were often predatory or even parasitic on each other. It’s only on the “legionary” level that they were able to cooperate.) There is also the factor that more humans were able to “overcome” the Legion than I had anticipated happening. It might be a combination of both, more observation is definitely required. 

I have warmed to the concept behind Shader’s idea to broadcast information about Legion. My change of opinion came about after an encounter with a human sorcerer. This sorcerer had been able to take over an entire town using sorcery to control the other humans via their Legion incorporation. (See above, Legion is inherently cooperative.) This resulted in a more insidious form of control than simply using demons to control the populace through fear. 

I discovered the situation during a routine expedition for supplies and raw materials. When I entered the inhabited area of town I immediately felt there was something off with the humans I came in contact with. I was immediately suspicious, but continued my transactions for information and supplies. I asked questions about a place to squat for the night, and given directions to a house. This of course turned out to be a trap. I had been anticipating a trap and fought off the humans who had been lying in wait for me. (All were extremely disfigured, and extremely feral/not lucid.) I received damage, and had a severe concussion for about twenty seconds. Then the sorcerer tried to capture me. It was a general purpose binding, and I don’t think he anticipated catching a demon with my “rank.” I struggled with the spell, as it tried to access my mind and force a contract.

It hurt like hell, and I wasn’t nearly as recovered as I thought I was. The sorcerer almost had me at one point, but I was able to fight off the binding spell. I slammed out of the house and down the steps of the porch, half blind with pain, toward the sorcerer. The sorcerer threw up a shield, and I bounced off, landing on my ass. I was not a vision of grace as I scrambled back up in the snow. He tried another binding spell, and was very surprised when I blocked him with a shield of my own.

The duel lasted about fifteen minutes. He was a strong sorcerer, and had the entire town under his thumb, as well as a number of Legion constructs. I was eventually able to kill the sorcerer, smashing through his shields and his bodyguards, and ripping him to pieces. This freed the townspeople, some of whom fell to the ground, suffering from circulatory shock, some of them from injuries sustained during the battle. (The Legion constructs I hadn’t killed, fell to pieces.) 

A few of them came toward me, but I made a defensive movement and they stopped, their hands going up in a placating gesture. “You okay son?” A human man who might have been fifty asked.

“You’re bleeding, I’m a doctor,” a younger man said. 

I think I might have still been mildly concussed because I was so confused in that moment. I was standing there in my battle form, my ears back and my tail sweeping from side to side. My wings were flared. I was clearly not human, and even if I’d been in my human form, they should have been suspicious of me. Frightened and angry. We’d been fighting seconds ago. “I’m fine, I don’t need a doctor,” I said, and for some reason, showed him the rakes on my arm, already sealing shut. 

The older man nodded, and the younger one, the doctor, went to check the humans who had fallen to the ground. The humans were helping each other, and generally giving me a wide berth, with the older man standing by me, talking to me in a low voice. Engaging me in conversation, talking about the sorcerer, and asking me questions. I have no idea why I answered him; I was dazed, jumpy, and ready to strike out at any moment. But the older man kept talking to me, as the humans organized themselves, and I gradually became calm again. Somehow, I ended up giving a lecture about sorcerers and how to detect and defeat them, at a meeting organized by the older man, who turned to be, of all things, a pastor. I also taught them as much as I could in a two hour meeting about Legion. We left them more information about Legion, and also gave left them information on how to create wards and shields.

I think I never anticipated sorcerers being a problem, but it’s clear that they’re going to be. In the ideal situation, there wouldn’t have been any sorcerers, but this is not the ideal situation, as the world seems intent on reminding me. I am going to have to make a concerted effort to hunt sorcerers, in addition to every other thing I need to do. 

(It will be easier when Joshua is awake. And I hate to say it but it will be easier when his sister wakes up. The Magdalen Order has extensive experience with facing sorcerers, or other dabblers in the occult. Anything she might know will be useful. Also, she’ll be able to help me find Chrono.) 

The gardening project is going well.

The doll project is also going well.

The dreams about Chrono continue. I’ve also been having dreams about Pandaemonium. Mostly the moment when I knew Mary had been possessed, mixed in with racing Chrono to Joshua’s sister, when Pandaemonium identified her as the next host. I dream of Mary, completely overwhelmed by Pandaemonium killing Chrono because I hadn’t reached them in time. I’ve dreamed of Pandaemonium flowing right through Chrono and into Joshua’s sister, and I dreamed of the moment she shot me, except in the dream, her eyes are brown, and her hair is long, and flowing and black. That particular dream has happened a few times, along with a dream where Mary is talking to me about something, though I never remember the topic, and one very realistic dream where I can hear Fiore calling my name, telling me to wake up. 

I know Pandaemonium is destroyed, but I don’t know how, and the fact that I don’t know how is beginning to bother me. 


	3. Days Forty Eight Through Fifty Six

**Log: Day 48 (Wednesday, August 12, 1925)**

We are now heading north, toward Minnesota. Shader is working on her broadcasts in between working on the more delicate repairs and working with Rosette. I am working on the garden project, helping with repairs, taking care of the chickens, and planning the next supply runs.

So far, Shader has created four lessons that play on a loop at 24 hour intervals. They are each an hour long and she has more planned. The first lesson is a general description of what Legion is, it’s functions and uses. The next lesson gives an overview of the plague, how Legion integrates with living and non-living matter and how to control Legion’s growth and the shape it takes. The third and fourth lessons are about Pandaemonium, the explosion, and the long winter. She has more planned and wants me to participate. (I am not comfortable with her talking about Pandaemonium, though my reaction was more emotional than logical. I am also not comfortable with the idea in participating in her project.) 

It has fallen to me to clean out everyone’s quarters to make room for Joshua, Rosette and eventually the other children. (Shader tried to help with the latter task, but became distraught.) I was surprised at how affected I was during the cleaning process. It was a melancholy experience to enter Genai, Viede, Rizelle and Fiore’s rooms and remove all aspects of their personalities and quirks from each. (I was extremely reluctant to clean/empty Fi’s room, it felt too much like saying she was dead as well.)

Once the rooms were cleaned, I set up the rooms for Joshua and Rosette, with some help from Shader. Beds, chairs, desks, shelves, entertainment consoles. (Learning how to use the device should give Rosette something to do while recovering.) Then I moved Viede’s books to the library, and threw Genai’s magazines into the recycler. The magazines were soon joined by Rizelle’s “souvenirs” which were not things anyone (such as excitable young ladies or their little brothers) should come across.

The “souvenirs” immediately made me think of my mistake in not warning Joshua that Rizelle was not in any way suited for going on missions on her own. It was a fortunate mistake in that Rizelle had been able to discover what had become of Azmaria Hendrick but it was still a mistake. I hadn’t wanted Joshua to become afraid of Rizelle, so I hadn’t warned him, which again, was a mistake.

I find myself visiting the room where Rosette is currently being kept. She looks very small surrounded by machines and connected to tubes and wires, much smaller than she actually is. I still wonder what Chrono sees in her, even though I can easily remember how strong she was during the final battle. I still don’t know what happened, how she defeated Pandaemonium, who had so easily destroyed hundreds, thousands of girls like her, girls with the ability to interface with Pandaemonium’s system turned into cores for that insidious intelligence. (Ability? More like a curse.)

I want to ask her questions about what she might have seen, what she had told Chrono, because he should _not_ have known how to direct Pandaemonium. I sincerely doubt she’ll remember, or that she’d be willing to tell me, but one can hope. (I’ll be lucky if I can get her to cooperate in finding Chrono.)

At this point in the doll-making process, Rosette is undergoing the first of a number of surgeries. Her bones will be strengthened, muscles and organs replaced. Some significant improvements will be made to her nervous system and sensorium.

Her brain is in much better condition than Fiore’s had been, (Fiore’s brain had been knocked around inside the skull during her attempt to defend her family and there had been some severe damage) so we don’t have to regrow tissue. She _might_ have some memory problems, but Shader says they shouldn’t be severe. The only problem is the devices for absorbing, converting and storing astral energy. They are huge, ungainly, and will definitely alarm Rosette. Shader thinks she can miniaturize/refine them. I would normally just go for whatever was the most efficient without regard to making them aesthetically pleasing, but Rosette will be suspicious enough without wearing a collar and heavy cuffs that look like restraints.   

I dreamed that I was talking to Mary again. She was sitting by my bed, and for some reason it was just after I removed the horns. There was a dark blotch of red spreading on her dress, where I had stabbed her. She didn’t seem bothered by it, and it seemed perfectly natural to talk about books while she bled. I woke up, still arguing with her about a book she couldn’t have possibly read, because it had been published nearly a decade after her death.

While scouting, the eagle encountered a much larger white eagle that dove at us. We were barely able to avoid the attack, and made immediate evasive maneuvers. The white eagle came up out of the dive and gave chase. We avoided the next attack, and returned with an attack of our own. It was a nasty fight that definitely didn’t “feel” like the attack from a normal bird, which was quickly confirmed because eagles, even bizarrely huge albino Golds generally do not have glowing blue eyes. 

“Unknown demon, you are entering territory under the protection of Pursuer Kadros,” the demon (the Pursuer no less!) flying the eagle said. “Turn back immediately or land to be identified. This is your only warning.”

I attempted to question the demon about how wide this territory is, but they repeated their request that I either turn back or land to be identified. Before my eagle was attacked, I noticed a town that looked in fairly good condition. We’ll be taking a detour, with tests to see if we encounter the eagle again to get an idea of how much territory Kadros is holding.

I am not happy that a Pursuer survived the explosion of Pandaemonium. I am curious about the circumstances of his survival, and what he’s up to. (Why hadn’t he been called in with the others when Duffau attacked?) I did not get a sense that he was under a sorcerer’s control, though I can’t be sure. I also don’t want to leave an enemy at my back, so we will definitely be investigating to see what’s going on.   

**Log: Day 51 ( Saturday, August 15, 1925)**

Shader was not happy about my decision to further investigate the Pursuer. She was of course, right to not be happy. My sword was still broken and I was still recovering from the last battle with Chrono and the explosion of Pandaemonium. (Shader had made me an Astral collector from the fragments of horn that she’d been able to recover, but I wasn’t able to retain nearly as much energy as I used to.) More recently, my energy levels were still low after my encounter with the sorcerer more than a week ago. I was eventually able to bring her around to my point of view, though she still wasn’t happy. She insisted I take a few of Fiore’s contract-gems with me.

Shader dropped me off with the truck about two miles from where we had determined was the edge of Kadros’ “territory.” The weather was cold, gray and unpleasant, and the precipitation had been alternating between snow and sleet for the past few days. Visibility was very poor, it was sleeting, the road was terrible, and I was glad that I thought to chain the tires before being dropped off. 

I was not far into Kadros’ “territory” before I set off silent alarms and sensors. (I underestimated my ability to detect them.) Kadros knew I was approaching, and that I was a powerful demon within fifteen minutes of my entrance into his territory. He let me get deeper into his territory while he gathered further information from the sensors. At some point he realized that I was a Sinner. (Possibly he finally made the connection between a powerful demon entering his territory and a bald eagle construct that had kept skimming the edge of it for the past few days. Of course at this point, I hadn’t realized he’d detected me or identified me as a Sinner. Shader wants the schematics for the sensors. I want the schematics for the sensors.)

He shot out the tires of the truck. When I got out of the truck he took a shot at me, which went through the door and hit right below my sternum, slamming me back against the side of the truck. It hurt and I couldn’t breathe for a moment before I started healing. I down slid quickly and he shot again, missing this time.

I threw up a shield and staggered to my feet. I looked in the direction of the first shots, but didn’t see anything. Didn’t hear anything either, except for the sleet. I would have expected a fear projection, perhaps the usual taunts. The lack was somehow more eerie than either.

I shifted from my more human form to my fighting form, and ascended into the sky, still surrounded by the shield. I flew toward where the shots had come from. Of course, he wasn’t there when I reached the location.

We played hide and seek for a few hours in the sleet and slush, him shooting or occasionally hitting me with an energy bolt. I’d return an attack in his general direction, but he changed his position very quickly, so it was hard to catch him. He didn’t threaten or project the entire time, and he lacked the typical Pursuer arrogance combined with flamboyance. I was facing an actual tactician, and he wasn’t alone. I sensed at least two other demons out there, and what might have been a human.  

I was being lured, but I was confident I could spring the trap and turn on the Pursuer and his allies.

Over confidence is always a mistake. The ghost of Genai (if demons have “ghosts”) would have laughed himself sick. I was on the ground, investigating another of Kadros’ hastily vacated locations, trying to get a trail when a snare ward sprang into existence around me. It was strong, and not something I’d be able to get out of quickly.

After a few minutes of waiting, Kadros made an appearance. He was tall, heavily muscled and gray, with single branched horns, the tine tilting outward. He had long black hair, and despite looking nothing at all like Chrono, strongly reminded me of him. He was perhaps a generation older than I am, which isn’t very old at all, for demons. “It shouldn’t have been this easy to catch you up,” Kadros said with a frown. “You’re a master strategist.”

“It was bound to happen eventually,” I replied. “Where did you get Magdalen Order snare wards?”

“From a member of the Magdalen Order of course,” Kadros said with a smirk I immediately wanted to wipe off his face.

We talked. By which I mean he attempted to interrogate me and I failed to cooperate with his interrogation while attempting to get out of the snare ward. He wanted to know how many Sinners had survived. He wanted to know their locations. He wanted to know why I had destroyed Pandaemonium. (He was very angry about that, but was doing an admirable job of controlling what I perceived to be a very strong temper. Possibly Chrono levels of rage, though Kadros seemed to be of the “cold rage” persuasion rather than Chrono’s “exploding volcanoes destroying cities rage.”)

Then he started asking about the Rite of Tuning and…things went very strange. No Pursuer had ever asked that question. They hardly ever asked questions unless it was the whereabouts of the others. The only ones who asked “what happened” were Chrono and Shader. Rizelle sometimes, Viede and Genai once each. I never answered them. Told them it wasn’t important, that what I’d seen wasn’t relevant to the goal. Told them half-truths that circled endlessly around points that avoided the actual horror I had seen. The horror I couldn’t communicate, that I could never share because of the danger. (I didn’t know what the danger was only that it was horrible. A poison. A disease.)

“What happened to you during the Rite of Tuning?”

It was cold and it was dark except for the light from the ward, casting shadows all over the place. It was cold and dark and Chrono was trying to talk to me and I was screaming myself hoarse. I wasn’t speaking the demon language, or at least, not the language I had grown up using.

(Chrono told me when I stopped babbling that I screamed the word “liars” over and over again, pulling at my horns until he held me down and Shader shot me full of tranquilizers.)

While my head was filled with this memory, I was frozen in place, unable to speak. It was like someone was pressing hard on my vocal cords, and then I heard, _“you can tell them now. Pandaemonium is dead.”_ And something snapped inside my head, the pressure went away and I suddenly couldn’t stop talking. Ranting, rather. About Pandaemonium. About the system. About the visitors (with a side rant at Mary for calling them visitors. Right. Visitors like Columbus was visiting Mary) about the lies created by frightened slaves too cowardly to abandon a dying ship. About escaping from Pandaemonium. Part of me was horrified to be giving so much away, another part of me couldn’t stop screaming.

My temper gave me extra energy and I bulled through the ward, and flew at Kadros. The fight was embarrassingly uncoordinated. I had hit some Chrono-level of rage, and was not in my best form. I connected, but Kadros used my momentum against me and I went sailing over his head. He took to the sky (his wings were metallic and avian not a common type) and I went after him. We exchanged blows and energy strikes, and then his eagle went after me. This sobered me up. In confusion and my pride in complete tatters I retreated, and Kadros did not pursue.    

**Log: Day 56 (Thursday, August 20, 1925)**

I am embarrassed about how much of a disaster my encounter with the Pursuer was.

Analysis of the encounter:

  * I was stupidly over confident. I am so used running rings around most Pursuers, that I forgot my own damn rules. (The first rule being, DON’T GET COCKY.)
  * I should have had back up. With knowing I didn’t have back up, I should have kept to strict surveillance instead of pushing an encounter.
  * Kadros has allies, which I knew intellectually, since he’s put himself up as some kind of “protector.” They are well organized, have good communication, and able to move quickly on what had to have been very short notice.
  * As I mentioned in the previous entry, Kadros is using some very advanced technology to detect and assess possible threats. I am very interested in finding out more about the technology he’s using, but can’t at this point.
  * We lost the damn truck. We can get a new one, and we still have the van and the cars, but we lost the damn truck.
  * I am not happy that I completely lost my mind in front of a Pursuer. I have no idea why he didn’t come after me.



I am not sure why being asked about the Rite of Tuning was so upsetting, or why I reacted in specifically that way. I know it’s a “dangerous” area, and always has been, but I’ve never broke down when that area was trespassed before. Was I being influenced at that point? I know nothing about Kadros or his abilities, or about his allies and _their_ abilities. Had Kadros or one of his allies _seen_ something they shouldn’t have? Again, I was stupidly overconfident.

After the encounter with Kadros, I fled the territory and was not pursued. I holed up for a day in an abandoned farm house. When I was confident I was not followed, and was not being tracked, I used concealment spells and made my way back to Eden. Shader seeing my condition, didn’t say a word, but then she didn’t have to. I was marched to the infirmary where she saw to my injuries (which were healing, though a few had to be reopened because of debris I hadn’t been able to clean out) and made me eat heated soup and take pain killers and a sleep aid.

I dreamed about the Rite of Tuning, and the chaotic first days when we hid from the Pursuers in the lower levels of Pandaemonium. I dreamed about the escape, all the useless, hopeless deaths and the loss of Pandaemonium’s head. In the dream I remember not caring, I remember knowing there was no escape. I remember not telling anyone about it because I couldn’t. At the same time I could feel all of it, nothing was safe behind glass walls anymore. Everything that had been narrowed down to a single indomitable purpose came undone, and I woke up in a cold sweat remembering the voice telling me that I could talk now that Pandaemonium was dead.

I lay there for a while remembering the voice, and wondering if it had been one of Kadros’ allies. I immediately dismissed the thought. It wouldn’t have been phrased that way, if it had been one of Kadros’ allies attempting to influence me. I wondered if they’d understood anything of what I’d said. Maybe Kadros hadn’t gone after me because I was an object of pity, obviously completely mad and no longer a threat. (More likely, they didn’t know if I had back up somewhere and hadn’t pursued because they didn’t want to run into more Sinners than they could handle.)

Further analysis and results of encounter and interrogation:

Kadros knows that at least one Sinner is still alive. This is not good, since at this point it’s just me and Shader and a lot of comatose children.

Instead of immediately attempting to kill me or extract information about the whereabouts of the others, he attempted to interrogate me about why my generation and those younger had been branded as Sinners destined for execution.

Kadros has some background information about why we were branded as Sinners, but wanted clarification and details.

I am not entirely clear of how much if anything Kadros understood of what I said. The previous entry contains most of what I remember saying, or reconstructions what I thought I said.

Kadros did not follow me, and after I woke up and remembered, I had Shader check me for any tracking devices that might have been planted during the battle. Of course this might be a waste of time if Kadros was able to tear anything off of me during the battle or use my blood.

I should therefore assume that Kadros can either find or observe me and take steps to block any attempts in that direction.

Kadros may or may not have an alliance with the Magdalen Order, or with members of the Magdalen Order.

We are continuing toward St. Paul and the Magdalen Order monastery there. Shader has been listening to the radio, but nothing seems to be coming from the city. We should probably avoid St. Paul simply because of the proximity to Kadros’ “territory” but this particular monastery is where they did extensive experimentation with demons and other lifeforms native to Pandaemonium. It might also be the monastery where the not-as-mythical-as-I-thought-it-was Legionnaire Project took place. Any information we can acquire about the interaction between Legion and living cells will be extremely valuable. Also, I feel a strange nostalgia, because it is also where Mary was kept.

Rosette is doing very well. The first surgery was a success, and her brain activity continues to be normal. Shader is working on a prototype for the astral collectors. The best I can say about them is that they do not look _too much_ like restraints, and are about half the size Fiore’s were. Shader assures me this is just the first draft and she has design plans for more decorative collection units. I told Shader, “good, show them too her once she calms down.”

“Boss, are you really that worried about her being upset?” Shader asked with a grin.

“I’m worried about her being uncooperative,” I replied. “Which is more than likely.”

Shader patted my arm. “Don’t worry, they’ll look great. I already had something new in mind for…for Fi.” Her smile faded at that.

“Fi is next on the list of people to find after Chrono” I told Shader.

“She just disappeared, Boss,” Shader said. “I think she might be--”

“I don’t believe she’s dead,” I said firmly. “I would have felt if she was dead. I’m not as sensitive as Chrono is, but I’m sure she’s alive. We just need to find her.”

Shader straightened up a little at that. “If you say so, Boss.”

“I do say so,” I replied and we continued to talk about the new astral collectors and the next stage of Rosette’s modifications.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I borrowed some Homestuck [Fan Trolls.](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1byN_e82h51lJdXlPAta8M6MEQojqOdiFjKesPUN8Jws/pub) Who are not actually trolls in this, but still.
> 
> Have also created [A Quick Explanation of What the Fuck for Non-Chrono Crusade Readers Who Are Reading Because of Bel’s Guest Appearance](http://sinner001.tumblr.com/post/143223737061/a-quick-explanation-of-what-the-fuck-for)
> 
> I have also created [A much shorter explanation of Boat Trolls for the CC Fans Who are Not Homestucks](http://sinner001.tumblr.com/post/143235682191/a-much-shorter-explanation-of-boat-trolls-for-the)
> 
> There is now also a [Discord chat](https://discord.gg/sEr8gxV) set up. Please be 18+


	4. Days Seventy Five Through Eighty Three

**Log: Day 75 (Tuesday, September 8, 1925)**

We are finally leaving the Magdelan Order abbey near St. Paul. St. Paul itself is a ghost town of only a few hundred survivors split into factions, and squabbling over the remaining resources. (The factions were easy to avoid, and we were able to acquire food, gasoline for the cars and van, and a new truck. The latter will need some work done on it when Shader gets the chance.)

There were no exorcists in either the city or the abbey, which was in ruins. This particular abbey was a major research and development center, and it appears that whatever the abbey was studying escaped containment and did away with the Magdalen Order scientists. After some investigating, I was able to determine that the exorcists were eventually able to put down the threat, but decided to retreat/consolidate their forces in Chicago and Franklin. (Needless to say, we will be avoiding those areas, though Chrono might be near Franklin.)

They took most of their library and equipment with them when they left the abbey. What was left were manuscripts and grimoires that I already owned copies of and equipment far inferior to anything we already had on Eden, or too broken to be useful. (This did not stop Shader from acquiring a number of devices that she wanted to take apart on her own time.) I was not able to find any useful information about the Legionaire program, though I did find a primitive device Shader thought might be an Astral collector. There was also a collection of Mary’s predictions, though a much older edition than the one I have. (It will be interesting to compare them.)

I also found what seems to be a diary. The writing is in sharp little wedge shapes and short lines, interspersed with a different script that was crossed lines, dots and curves and curved wedges. It’s a thick book, with a simple strap and lock that I was able to foil rather easily. (I was reluctant to simply cut the strap.) Perhaps half of the diary is filled with the two scripts, the rest of the pages are either blank, or contain sketches. Of note: a biplane and other vehicles, leaves and flowers with little notes beside them in the wedge or crossed line scripts, buildings of various (human) architectural styles, odd little diagrams, people…and demons. Specifically, Sinners.

My feelings about the book with its peculiar scripts had been merely intellectual curiosity until that point. I realized that I was holding a diary written by Mary, and apparently hidden by her. It was an amazing find.

I took it back to Eden and ran samples of two scripts in the database. It looks like the wedge script is probably cuneiform, though I couldn’t get a translation, because the cuneiform was also in _code_. I wasn’t able to identify the other script, there were a few scripts in the database similar to it, but I wasn’t able to get a positive identification for any of them. (And if I had, they would have been in code as well.)

I really wish I’d paid more attention to my cryptography classes. Codebreaking was not my area of expertise, and I’d been under the impression at the time that I simply needed to _be in command of_ codebreakers, not be one myself. (The six of us hardly needed more than the usual pass codes in our operations anyway.)

This is of course very frustrating, but I have been continuing the project.

Meanwhile, Shader has been in off again/on again communication with the Pursuer’s allies. (They contacted her during one of her radio broadcasts.) I was not happy about this, but Shader felt it was necessary and important. They have been exchanging weather information, and data concerning the spread of Legion. She is very enthusiastic about their gardening/farming projects, and I have to admit some of their methods/efforts have been ingenious. (Barriers that trap heat covering several acres and essentially creating giant greenhouses for example. Something I had not had the opportunity to see from the air, due to being blocked by the Pursuer’s eagle.) She is also acquiring medical information from them. (One of their allies is a defector, a Physician.)

Shader eventually persuaded me to talk to the Pursuer again. I was not happy about this, but Shader was very persuasive. The conversation was…very surreal for me. Possible also surreal for him; here we were, not trying to kill each other. (When we first “met” he seemed more inclined to question me first. So perhaps he was already disinclined to kill.) It was easier to speak to the Pursuer due the barrier of distance, and not actually seeing him.

The substance of the conversation was that he wanted to know why. Not just “why destroy Pandaemonium?” but also “why were the Sinners ordered to be culled?” Those were…difficult questions for me to answer, though I was able to communicate my reasoning more coherently than in our previous encounter. He asked questions, and I could hear that he was attempting to keep control of what had to be considerable anger.

“I should hunt you down,” the Pursuer says at the end of explanations. “Why don’t you tell me why I shouldn’t?”

“You Pursuers have never managed to capture any of us before. There’s no reason you’d be able to now,” I said.

“There is that,” the Pursuer says. “I think your numbers have shrunk as much as ours have though.”

“And after all the technical and medical information you’ve shared with my subordinate?” I ask him, a little mockingly. “You’d try to come after us?”

“Not the technician. Whatever she’s guilty of, she’s trying to make amends. Just you,” the Pursuer says. “Whatever the Elders thought happened during your Initiation, whether or not I think they overreacted. Whether or not destroying _our only home_ was the right decision to make. You are ultimately responsible.”

“I in no way deny responsibility,” I say in return. “I only regret my efforts were not completed to my satisfaction. That the better world I wanted did not manifest itself. You say you want a reason not to Pursue, and I can’t give you one, unless you value the little territory you’ve carved for yourself. Tell me why I shouldn’t destroy your little kingdom and your allies?”

“I am not a warlord,” the Pursuer says. “I am not creating a ‘kingdom’ I’m protecting a community I and my friends have chosen to assist. These are my people, and I’m going to continue protecting them, and if protecting them means continuing my Pursuit of you, I’m going to do it.”

It was like listening to Chrono. “I am not a threat to your community,” I say after a long pause. “If you are not a warlord. I…I will not permit any hierarchy or class system to exist.”

In the background on the Pursuer’s end I heard: “A Bolshevik demon?”

I laugh. “Anarchist, actually.”

In the background: “Good God.”

The Pursuer mutters something away from the radio, presumable to the other speaker. (A name, and the words, “please shut up, you’re not actually helping.”) To me he says, “I am not a warlord, if you want a fight, come after _me_ and not my allies.”

“Likewise,” I say, and then, “I will avoid your territory.”

“Okay,” the Pursuer says after a long pause. “I won’t come after you.”

“Good.”

It wasn’t the end of anything. I don’t trust the Pursuer, and he certainly doesn’t trust me. For now, we’ll avoid the territory, and I’ll let Shader handle any communication.

We’ve received occasional contacts from Magdalen Order agents and small communities questioning Shader’s radio broadcast. We’ve avoided giving away any concrete information on who we really are. It’s really annoying how many Order strongholds remain, though they seem to be fairly isolated, struggling and dying due to the current environment. (On the other hand, it makes sense that they would be out there. The Magdalen Order is the largest and most organized of the various demon-hunting organizations in North America.)

If Rosette learns that the Order still exists, I am worried she will attempt going to them.  

She is due to be woken up soon. I am hoping I can dissuade her from attempting to rejoin her old allies. (The part where they might attempt to vivisect her to find out how her new body works might be a key motivator to stay.)

I find I am looking forward to speaking to her again.

**Log: Day 80 (Sunday, September 13, 1925)**

I’ve made some progress on Mary’s diary, though it’s mostly that I was able to identify some of the plant sketches. Shader is extremely interested in the diagrams and sketches. By extremely interested, I mean she stole the diary so she could get copies of the sketches and diagrams and raved about Mary’s intuitive understanding of technology. (I was never entirely sure how much of Mary’s “understanding” was her native intelligence, and how much was the result of her preternatural gifts.)

I’m curious about the diary, and what she might have been attempting to hide. She was closely watched and “protected” by her keepers, and I think she had very little time to herself. Everything she said or did examined closely for meaning, every word written down and analyzed. She was their passive oracle without the fumes. Her first active use of her powers was to aid Chrono and escape her gilded cage and then later, helping us find Pandaemonium’s head. Perhaps this diary was simply her way of carving out a bit of privacy for herself; a work that was only hers, instead of for other people. (If that’s so, I wonder if I should feel a little guilty to pry as if the diary was simply a puzzle to solve.)

Rosette awakened Saturday evening, and was in something of a panic at first: she awoke early and tried to disconnect herself from her life support system. She was not able to get into any mischief; she’s not yet able to walk. Shader was able to talk her down and safely disconnect her from the machines. Then she was moved to the room that had been set up for her use. (I made a special point of reminding Shader not to give her a room that had access to the outer catwalks.) Shader brought her food and convinced her to eat. Then she at least partially convinced her to stop trying to take off the bracelets and necklace. (They are at least half the size of Fi’s cuffs and the collar has been replaced by a necklace similar to the prototype astral collector that Shader uses.)

Shader explained the cuffs and the nature of the changes that had been made. She was completely horrified, but Shader managed to talk her down again.

I waited until Rosette had recovered and had a chance to sleep, before making an appearance. Rosette was less than pleased by my presence and immediately launched into a flurry of demands, questions and accusations. I explained the situation in detail, giving her a complete outline of events. As I spoke, I watched her grow quieter, more horrified and paler, her hands knotting up in the blankets of her bed. “Everything’s gone,” she said. “Everything. You…” she trailed off and leveled a glare at me. “I’m going to kill you.”

“Not everything,” I told her. “Your brother, your friend Azmaria, the other children. Chrono.”

“You killed him! He died trying to stop you!”

“No,” I said. “I never said he was dead. I have no reason to believe he isn’t still alive.”

“So I’m bait? That’s why I’m still alive?” Rosette asked.

“No, you’re going to help me find him.”

“Says you,” Rossete spat.

“Says me,” I said.

“You think I’m gonna let you get another shot at him?” Rosette asked. “Over my dead body!”

“I’m glad you’ve accepted the possibility of his survival,” I said.

“You’re crackers. What do you want with him, anyway? He’s not gonna fold on your say so and be your stooge, even--even if you’re holding me hostage.”

“No, he made his point very clear,” I said agreeably. “And in the end, neither of us got what he wanted. But I still need to move forward, and I can’t do that without Chrono.”

Rosette gave me the strangest look at that point. I could sense that I had struck a chord with her somehow. “What do you want with him? Why do you--?”

“You want to find him too don’t you?” I asked. “He’s out there somewhere. You saw what he did to himself. He’s still alive but he’ll most likely be crippled by the corrupted Legion. That might not matter in the short term, he’s very powerful, but in the long term it will just get worse. There’s a small percentage of a chance that he might be able fix himself, but it’s a very small chance. He’s going to need help.”

“And you want this out’ve the goodness of your heart? You’ve turned over a new leaf?” Rosette asked with a great deal of skepticism.

“I want this because Chrono is still completely necessary,” I said. Rosette started glare, looked like she was going to say something along the lines of, _he’s not your patsy_ or something similar. “No, it doesn’t matter that he won’t follow my lead,” I said. “He doesn’t have to. It was stupid of me to think--” I broke off. “The situation is rolled up and I’m cracked, but he’s still my brother, Miss Christopher.”

She gave me another strange look. “I don’t trust you,” she said. “I don’t know what you’re playing at.” She took a breath. “I need to think about this.”

“There’s time,” I said. “And I have to get you back on your feet anyway.”

“Like hell,” she said. 

I explained the situation: Rosette needed to essentially relearn how to walk and fight because her body was essentially “new” and needed to be retaught. She wasn’t just weak and convalescent, she needed relearn everything. She was not happy to hear about this, and less happy to discover that I would be her primary teacher. She wanted to know why Shader couldn’t do the “teaching” and I further explained that Shader’s primary job was keeping Eden in the air and that I was the only one who could be spared. She was somewhat mollified when I told her that we were also going to be waking up her brother within the next few days.   

**Log: Day 83** **(Wednesday, September 16, 1925)**

Joshua is awake. He is also convalescent due to having broken his ankle during the initial chaos of Pandaemonium’s destruction. I let Shader handle the debriefing once he had awakened. Given our last interaction, I felt strangely reluctant to speak with him. Once Joshua had eaten and gotten dressed, he was set up in his old room, and then taken to see Rosette.

I allowed them some time alone together. They spent the time talking. Rosette talked about her and Chrono’s life with the Magdalen Order, Joshua about what he remembered of his time on Eden and in California. Joshua showed Rosette how to use the computer in her room and got into the security feeds to give Rosette a “tour” of Eden. Rosette seemed disturbed by the security system, seeing the cameras as an invasion of privacy.

“Look, there were exorcists patrolling the grounds at the abbey, right? It’s just like that, except you don’t have to do as much walking,” Joshua said.

“Well, no one was going into people’s rooms, or the dorms or something,” Rosette grumbled. “He could be watching us right now!”

“I wouldn’t be too surprised if he was,” Joshua said.

“Are you okay with that?” Rosette asked.

“I’m not…not okay with it,” Joshua said. “The security systems on the ship and at the house kept us safe from Pursuers for the most part. And sometimes…I needed to be kept an eye on.”

(I did cut the feed after that. I had been drawn to watch by the camera and sound pickups activating due to keywords and elevated vocal tones.)

Once they had some time together, I elected to join them for dinner. Dinner was a bit awkward, Joshua was tense at first, and Rosette was hostile. Rosette was horrified to learn that she’d been eating meals I had prepared. Joshua, with a great deal of amusement asked her who she thought had been cooking. Rosette indicated that she thought Shader had been cooking.

“Shader couldn’t boil water, Rosette,” Joshua said, laughing.

“Hey, I can do at least that much!” Shader said indignantly.

“I’ve seen you eat chicken soup out of the can, without even heating it up,” Joshua said.

“So? I can cook some things!”

Today was Rosette’s first training session. She was initially hostile, but went eventually followed my directions. Stretching exercises were involved, followed by standing, and then some attempts at walking. There was some discussion during this time, mostly questions about when I was going to wake her friend and the other children up. I explained that Eden couldn’t support them yet. This led to her wanting to know about leaving Eden. I explained that other places were worse off.

Interestingly, she did not ask about, or mention the Order. I questioned her about this, and she was very reluctant to respond at first, but then she said, her shoulders hunching, “they were going to execute him. They ordered Father Remington to do it. Because of what happened in San Francisco.”

“I see. I could see why you’d be hesitant to contact them,” I said. “I wouldn’t stop you from leaving, but consider the fact that Eden is a mobile base of operations that you would be able to work from. We’ve been working on making it more self-sufficient, due to the lack of infrastructure.”

Rosette looked very much like she wanted to comment at length on that, but didn’t say anything.

“But if you are very determined to leave, the only other place that might be a comparable base of operations would be a town and farming community under the control of a Pursuer. You might be able to make an alliance with him.”

“A Pursuer?” Rosette asks. “A Pursuer took over a town?”

“From what I understand, he took over protection of the community.”

“Protection racket,” Rosette muttered. “How are you on friendly terms with a Pursuer?”

“I never said I was on friendly terms with him,” I said. “We just have a mutual agreement to not kill each other. And hardly a ‘protection racket.’ But he seems to have a number of allies who are actively assisting the community, so they’re doing better than other communities I’ve seen, and might be willing to help you.”

“You’ll let me take Joshua and the others?” Rosette asks, suspiciously.

“Joshua can go where he wants,” I said. “Several of the children are too injured to move, and might be a burden on the community. You and Joshua, and perhaps your friend Azmaria would be best able to enter the community, if you were to make contact.”

“I don’t know.”

“Just another possibility to consider,” I said.

“Yeah, but you want me to help _you_ find Chrono,” Rosette said.

“And you would be,” I said. “We just wouldn’t be directly allied.”

“‘Allies,’” Rosette said. “You don’t have allies, just marks and goons.”

“Shader is not a mark or goon. Neither is Joshua,” I said. “None of the others were ‘goons,’ for that matter.”

Rosette scoffed, and was generally suspicious, but she asked more questions about options, and then talked to Joshua about it.

I dreamed of Chrono again. I dreamed that I _was_ Chrono, and I was wandering through an abandoned farmhouse. It hurt to breath, and my vision was blurry in one eye and nonexistent in the other. The dream somehow got tangled up with the plot of [The House on the Borderland](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_House_on_the_Borderland) and I fought Swine Things while trying to get to Mary, (“my” Mary, not the Recluse’s sister) who was trying to tell me how to defeat the monsters. It seemed to involve driving them into the lake, which was full of a heavier-than-air fog. In the fog were strange winged shapes, something like fish, and something like birds. (So the dream was also combined with [The King in Yellow.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_King_in_Yellow) )

 


	5. Days Ninety Through One Hundred and Three

**Log Day 90 (Wednesday September 23, 1925)**

Rosette’s mobility has improved greatly, though she’s relying on a walking frame that allows her to sit when she becomes tired. The frame has not impeded her curiosity, and she has taken to exploring Eden. Joshua occasionally joins her on these jaunts in crutches, though Shader has been keeping him busy with various chores that can be completed with limited mobility. (Mostly quality control on “homemade” components meant to replace worn down or broken components. Very little knowledge is required to do this, aside from the specifications of the components, and operating the devices to test the components.)

Except for working with Rosette, and meal times, I have mostly avoided the Christopher siblings, and they for the most part seemed content with avoiding me. I was therefore a little surprised to find Joshua hovering in the doorway of one of the rooms for the gardening project, watching me pick corn. I came to a stopping point on the row, and set the basket down. “Hello, Joshua,” I said. “Did you need something?”

I felt very strange in that moment, a moment of déjà vu. I saw him smaller, and in a night shirt, dazed with Chrono’s horns crowning his head, cheeks flecked with blood, eyes bloodshot from the force of his coughing. I felt a terrible tightness in my chest, but then Joshua was as he was, in trousers, shirt and suspenders, his true age. Watching me with an expression I couldn’t read.

“What happened to your hair?” He asked.

I sensed that this question wasn’t really the one he wanted to ask. He was working up to something, something that I realized I had been waiting for. Anger, confusion, and the strongest maledictions he could think of, perhaps. “I was badly injured. Shader cut it off because she didn’t want to deal with the mess.”

“How badly injured?” Joshua asked. “I would have thought you nearly indestructible.”  

“The sword was broken, so I wasn’t able to regenerate. The Astrallines were disrupted, and still are to some extent, so it took longer for me to heal. I was in one of the regeneration tanks for six months.”

Joshua’s hands clenched on his crutches, in some burst of emotion that I still couldn’t read. “What are you going to do now?”

“Shader explained, didn’t she?” I asked. “We’re going to find Chrono.”

“You didn’t get what you wanted,” Joshua said. “This isn’t the world you wanted. You wanted to destroy everything.” His voice was shaking with what I could now identify as anger.

“I know,” I said. I was confused, a little. I couldn’t guess at _how_ he was angry, but I could sense that he was confused too. “It didn’t work out the way I planned. Plans can fall apart.” I smiled, and knew I shouldn’t have done it. I also shouldn’t have said, “I suppose Duffau was right in the end, I was playing, and shouldn’t have come to the battle.”

Joshua went red. “Goddamit Aion!” he shouted “I trusted you. I believed you, but it was just a game to you, wasn’t it? You don’t care about anything, do you?”  

I was even more confused. “You agreed with your sister and Chrono at the end, didn’t you? You shifted your allegiance.”

“I wanted you to not kill my sister,” Joshua said. “I wanted you to _listen to me._ ”

“There isn’t a cure, Joshua,” I said, something in my chest clenching tightly again. “There wasn’t, and I had to destroy Pandaemonium. I _had_ to. It wasn’t a game, and I can’t apologize because in absence of anything I could have done differently, anything beyond pure hope and faith when I had neither, I’d have done the same thing.”

“Hope and faith seemed to work for Rosette,” Joshua snapped. “God. Why did I believe you, what made me think you were right, and that destroying everything was a good idea. Why did I ever trust you?”

“You could hear Her too,” I said. “That would have been part of it.”

“I was out of my _mind._ ”

“So was I, I’m afraid,” I said. “I don’t think any of us were sane, really. Are sane”

Joshua glared at me, but laughed at the same time, a breathless, bitter sound. “That’s almost an apology.”

“It’s an explanation. This world is so terrible, Joshua,” I said. “And all I could see it as was a reflection of the System I couldn’t escape. As if it, or She were the cause of all that was terrible universally.”   

“You hold humans in so much contempt, that you can’t even imagine them doing good or evil on their own terms, there has to be some other party responsible,” Joshua said, still angry, but tired now.  

“That’s usually the place my kind is put in,” I pointed out. “I just trusted the premise as being accurate and factual. My kind are predators, and its right that we be seen as what we are.”

“‘You have nowhere you can go,’” Joshua quoted. “I don’t think you tried hard enough. Why would you even _listen_ to that monster, or believe anything She said was true?”

“We were a handful of children,” I said. “Should we have tried to conquer with Pandaemonium’s Pursuers at our heels?”

“Maybe you should have,” Joshua says with a reckless gesture that loses him one of his crutches. He flails a bit, and balances with the remaining crutch. “I remember you being so angry about injustice, unfairness. You told me about things it wouldn’t have occurred to me were wrong until you explained _why_ it was wrong. Maybe you could have _made_ a better world out of what was right in front of you.”

“I doubt we would have been any better,” I said, thinking of Rizelle and Genai.

“You could have been, if you wanted to,” Joshua said. “I don’t think you wanted to.”

“Things are…clearer now,” I said in reply. “But I can still only move forward.” I retrieved his crutch and handed it to him.

“Goddammit Aion,” Joshua said again, more softly this time. He took the crutch from me, and settled his arm into the cup, his hand on the handle. “I’m glad you’re helping Rosette,” he said, voice a little more firm, like he was trying to sound like an adult. “Even if it’s for your own reasons.” A sharp, angry breath. “Even if it’s to find Chrono.”

“You’re angry with him, as well,” I said.

“That would cover it, if spread thin,” Joshua said, and left the room.

**Log Day 98 (Thursday, October 1, 1925)**

The Christophers are arguing, and I’ve been strictly warned by Shader to stay out of it. Joshua is angry that Chrono failed to protect Rosette, and that she made the contract with Chrono. Rosette is angry because Joshua is angry about Chrono. She’s also angry because Joshua appeared to defend my actions.

(He hadn’t, really. He attempted to mediate between myself and Rosette while we were arguing. She took the attempt badly, and they started arguing. When I attempted to intervene Joshua took it badly, and Rosette took it even worse because Joshua said, “Master, _go away_ , let me handle this.” So I left to Rosette screaming at Joshua about not needing to be handled and that Joshua wasn’t my slave.)

That was two days ago, and I am tempted to toss them both into the nearest water collection tank. They have both settled into a sullen sort of silence and glares, so at least it’s quieter. I don’t see how mediating between them would have been a bad idea, but I am willing to respect Joshua’s request that I not interfere.

Shader is continuing the broadcasts, and has actually been in contact with various small communities. We’ve also picked up some broadcasts by remnants of the Magdalen Order. They make dire pronouncements about trusting the advice of demons. They’ve been generally offering assistance, but very little in the way of information/education. There have also been a few direct threats that I’m going to have to address at some point.

Shader wants to drop radios. I don’t think we have the resources to make as many radios as she would like. She’s also scheduled music and other audio programming, as if she were running a radio station. Joshua seems enthused by the idea of a radio station, Rosette bemused.  

(Shader is still in contact with Kadros and his allies, which is not as upsetting as I would have thought. One of his allies is a defector of Physician rank, and he’s apparently willing to tutor Shader.)

I am continuing the harvest of the garden rooms, and the chicken flock is doing well.

I have been debating acquiring horses. The garage we used for a stable is still intact. (Mostly because of Genai, he was ridiculously fond of the creatures.) We won’t be able to find gasoline for much longer, and while we could alter the truck and van to run on other fuels, it might be more economic to use horses. On the other hand, I would have to teach Joshua and Rosette how to ride.

Rosette approached me during one of my rest periods. I was in the music room, playing with a ragtime composition I’d been working on intermittently, and I think she was drawn in by the music. “You play the piano?” she asked sounding startled.

“No, Rosette, it’s a player piano,” I said, turning to face her.

She flushed. “I thought you were Joshua.”

“Were you looking for him?”

“No, just exercising.” She looked a little upset, as if remembering she was angry both at Joshua and myself. She glanced at my notes and the music. “I didn’t think you’d play the piano.”

“I play several instruments,” I said. “Clarinet, guitar, organ, piano.” 

“Why?” She asked.

“Because I like music,” I said patiently. “And because the only way to amplify and direct as much astral energy as I needed to raise Pandaemonium was through the Oratorio I composed.”

Rosette snorted. “Oh. You composed that thing? I guess I shouldn't be surprised, it was so overdramatic and stuffy...” 

I admit to being stung by Rosette’s comment. “I really don't think you're qualified to critique my music, Miss Christopher,” I said. 

“I don't need to know how to play to know what something sounds like, do I?” Rosette asked. 

“I mean, I'm questioning your musical taste, if it exists, and your bias,” I said. 

Rosette glared. “I have musical taste!” 

“I doubt that,” I replied. “Also, you’re biased.” 

Rosette made an indignant sound. “Okay, I’m biased, but I do too have musical taste!” She named bands and singers, and we somehow ended up discussing music for the next hour. 

Joshua had an asthma attack this evening, possibly exacerbated by dust (he was cleaning air filters) and pushing himself too hard and insisting he was fine. Rosette fussed, Joshua snapped, and then Shader went off into a tirade. “Asthma is not psychosomatic, it is not a mental illness, and if it were a mental illness it wouldn’t make Joshua any more or less fit than any other human.” She then went into a thunderous rant about human medicine with side trips into her feelings about eugenics and Social Darwinism that left the Christopher siblings staring. 

“Shayshay, I thought we were supposed to let the Christophers sort each other out,” I say when she finally winds down. 

Shader glared at the old nickname, her ears back and tail twitching. “Don’t call me that,” she snapped. 

“Shayshay?” Rosette asked. 

“Shay means ‘busy’ in a ‘really curious and sticking your nose into things’ kind of way,” Joshua explained. “Like a little kid.” 

“Joshua!” Shader protested indignantly. 

“She was really active as a child,” I said. “Chrono and I were given the job of watching over her in hopes of keeping us out of trouble and learning responsibility. She was about six, we were about ten.” 

Rosette looked baffled. “It’s really hard to imagine you as a little kid.” 

“He’d look just like Chrono, Rosette,” Joshua said. 

“I know, but still,” she said, frowning. “It’s just really weird.” 

“They were great big brothers,” Shader said. “When they weren’t making up stupid nicknames.” 

“Stupid nicknames you earned,” I said. 

“Urgh,” Shader said. “I’m sorry about the outburst,” she said. “I found something out about something that happened to a friend a few days ago. It was pretty bad, and you two kind of reminded me of it.” 

Joshua apologizes, Rosette asks about what happened. Joshua points out that whatever it is, Shader might not want to talk about it. This almost starts the arguments back up again, but Shader interjects with, “No, it’s okay Joshua. It was something he told me about, but I don’t think it’s really private, just awful.” 

“And we reminded you of it?” Joshua asked. 

Shader nodded. “Kind of? I mean your situation and his isn’t really similar but just…” She makes a gesture with her hands. “The concept that the sick or crippled are a waste of resources. The way people get locked up in attics or worse. People being sterilized because ignorance and a lack of resources is the same as being mentally limited because if they were intelligent they wouldn’t be poor.” She took a breath. “And I’m going to start ranting again.” 

She took another breath. “Okay. Once upon a time there was a family of sorcerers who were very rich. They very strongly supported various eugenics laws, and then something terrible happened. Something was very wrong with their son. He stopped speaking, he became overwhelmed easily, he stopped making eye contact. The slightest of changes in daily activities could upset him. Since he had previously seemed to be precociously bright, this was very upsetting to the family. They wanted to hide this strange illness because it would be a scandal to have a child like this.” 

“It probably would have been better for them to lock him in an attic or put him in an institution somewhere and forget about him than what they did do. They used sorcery, and began controlling him like a puppet. Spells to make him act ‘normal,’ a demon to pull the strings and make him seem like the bright little boy they remembered him as. And it seemed to work, and they almost forgot about the spells and how they had imprisoned their son in his own body. How they turned a demon into his nursemaid. Then the world ended, and the spells broke.” 

“The demon broke free?” Rosette guessed. 

“No, they both did,” Shader said. “Galley and the demon broke free, and neither of them remembers what happened to the family, but they are pretty sure there was a fire, because Galley was badly burned.”    

Rosette looked horrified, so did Joshua. “Are they okay now?” Rosette asked. 

Shader nodded. “Yes. They’ve been through a lot, but they’re better. They have friends, they have a community. But I’m still upset about it, so I’m sorry I blew up.” 

“Kadros’ allies?” I asked. 

Shader nodded again. “Two of them, anyway,” she said. 

“You’re getting along with them very well,” I said. 

She shrugged. “They’re nice people, even if Kadros is a Pursuer.

 

**Log Day 103 (Tuesday October 6, 1925)**

I have had more unsettling dreams.

One involved an Eden in orbit around a blasted, burned Earth. It was full of demons, other Sinners. I was talking to Shader about the next generation of children to be born, but then Mary was there, horribly fused with Pandaemonium’s head and regenerated body. She spoke Pandaemonium’s familiar litany of having no home, of being outcasts, and the banks of incubators turned into a blackened honeycomb from which blood began to pour. 

The deck beneath my feet cracked and heaved apart. Beneath the plating was muscle and bone that flexed and moved. I stumbled and fell into the wash of blood, scrambling to get away from Pandaemonium-Mary, who was reaching out for me. If she touched me, I was certain something worse than death would happen.

I awoke, stumbled out of bed and barely made it to the wastebasket, throwing up the entire contents of dinner. It barely helped. My head pounded, and my stomach was turning in knots. In my head I could still see Pandaemonium reaching for me. Still see the roiling horror of conjoined, writhing limbs and torsos, desperate pleading faces subsumed one into another.

I heard my name spoken and I startled, looked up. Mary was crouched near me, just out of reach. She said my name again, asked me if I was all right. It was so strange, and so normal, both her concern and the spreading stain of red on her dress. I told her honestly about the dream, and she coaxed me into the bathroom to rinse out my mouth and wash my face, and then sent me back to bed. I think most of that was a second dream. I don’t think I could have confided in her so readily. And surely if Mary were going to haunt someone, it would be Chrono.

In another dream, there was a woman in a field, rocking a cradle and singing a disturbing lullaby, one of the ones that were more threat than entreaty that the baby sleep. Not far away was a cabin, with a little garden, chicken coop and sheds. I knew a great deal about her, without knowing who she was.  She and her husband were both leatherworkers and trappers, that is, they both did the work, but the business was in his name. They lived a few miles from a small town that barely deserved the designation.

She’d been pregnant. Her husband was dead and the cabin was in flames. She had never known her children. She had never sung them lullabies, threatening or otherwise. She sang to corncob dolls with little leather horns and braided grass tails pinned to their heads.

I watched the cabin burn, my sword in one hand, a severed head cradled in my other arm. My armor was splattered with blood and smeared with soot and dust.  I could still hear the lullaby. (Armless winged horror; face straining with some unknowable effort, yet her eyes were closed as if she slept and only dreamed of that effort.)   

That dream was even more disturbing.

Oddly enough, I also had a dream of Kadros. I think we were talking about the life-draining creatures, though the conversation went in a strange direction. There was a member of the Magdalen Order there, and I think I was trying to find out about the Legionnaire Project from him. He said he didn’t know anything, but he was hooked up to a strange, complicated looking device, hoses socketed into ports embedded along his spine.

“He really doesn’t know anything about the Legionnaire Project,” Kadros says. “Beyond the fact that there is only one survivor.”

“Was, isn’t it?” I said.

“Is, I should think,” the Magdalen Order exorcist said with frown. “Had quite a fall, but he’s very tough.”

“How do you know any of this?” I asked.

“The question is more how do _you_ know any of this,” Kadros said. “Erskine just muddles along grabbing randomly usually.”

“I’ve been getting better!” The exorcist protested.

Kadros made an exasperated gesture taking in the vague, foggy landscape that was part one of the parlors in Eden, and part the dining room of a small house. 

“These dreams I’ve been having are because of him?” I asked, more than a little annoyed, though in a strangely distant way.

“Was he actually in any of them? Or me? Erskine isn’t allowed to leave me behind anymore,” Kadros said.

“I don’t need the likes of you to nursemaid me,” Erskine said, glowering at the Pursuer.

“Chloe Vines,” Kadros said slowly and carefully. Whatever the name meant caused Erskine to flush and the muscles in his jaw to tighten.

“I’m sure this is a very private conversation I shouldn’t be hearing,” I said, and then I woke up.

I’m not sure if the last dream was something that actually happened (for values of “happening” that mean some sort of out of body experience or long distance communication), and I’ve been somewhat reluctant to confess the matter of the dreams to Shader, or attempt to confirm that the dream was actual communication with Kadros and his ally. (I’ve also been reluctant to tell her about the nightmares. I’m not certain there is anything she can do, and I don’t want to worry her.)  

I’m going to be going on a scavenging expedition. Rosette I think wanted to go with me, if only to relieve her boredom. (There has been little for her to do except exercise, but she is not ready for an expedition of this nature at this point.) Joshua was also disappointed. I confess to being a little worried to leave them alone on Eden with just Shader. We’re going to be crossing over the Great Lakes and into Canada, and from there into New York. I’m not sure what we’ll find when we get there. I’m not even sure Chrono somehow made it back to New York. It’s only a feeling, but I feel very strongly that we’ll find him there. 

 


End file.
